Kristen Wiig & Lorainne Newman - Edgy Comedians (People magazine)

Now & Then Edgy Comedians

Saturday Night Live Vet Laraine Newman and Current Star Kristen Wiig Talk About How Comedy—and Censorship Standards—Have Changed




KRISTEN WIIG
Age: 36.
Currently in her fifth SNL season, Wiig has also made her mark in films like Knocked Up and Adventureland.


LARAINE NEWMAN
Age: 57.
There at the start of SNL, Newman has since found success voicing animation. "I love it," says the mother of two teens. "It lets me be a mom."


Are you fans of each other's characters?
NEWMAN: Oh God, yes.

WIIG: I don't know a lot of the names, but of course Connie Conehead, and the Valley Girl—

NEWMAN: Sheri, yeah. I tried never to repeat characters. It was dumb of me because it kind of made me invisible.

WIIG: I don't think you were ever invisible.


And Laraine?

NEWMAN: Where do I start? The two A-holes, and the Target Lady, and Aunt Linda—everything!


Has SNL's comedy changed in 35 years?

NEWMAN: I look at it kind of like the Olympics: What gymnasts could do in 1975 is nothing compared to what they can do now.

WIIG: I think people pay much more attention to the political stuff we're doing now. I don't know if it's just the times, or that there's so much that's able to be parodied recently.

NEWMAN: From a technical standpoint, I see all the hairpieces, and wardrobe, and technology—that's just dazzling to me. When I think about our skits it's like the Stone Age!


The show always pushed boundaries, though ...

NEWMAN: I was the first person to ever say "sucks" on television.

WIIG: Really?

NEWMAN: I was also the first to say "pissed off."

WIIG: That's an honor!

NEWMAN: I had to personally apologize to the NBC censor—but boy, today they pass me by!


Is anything the same?
NEWMAN: The schedule.

WIIG: The norm is to go in at 3 p.m., go home at 7 the next morning.

NEWMAN: It's definitely the domain of the young.


And behind the scenes?
WIIG: Just tons of drugs and sex stories. Nothing anyone wants to hear.

From:
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20314103,00.html
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Nothing new about Kristen, but I learned a few things about Lorainne!

Enjoy!

Kristen Wiig - Interview (Jenny Slate's cursing on SNL & a film with Judd)

Read about Jenny Slate's curse flub here:

http://kristen-wiig.blogspot.com/2009/09/kristen-wiig-ignores-jenny-slaters.html

Wiig admits she was a nervous wreck when she started on the show four years ago, and her biggest fear was keeping her foul mouth in check - something Slate failed to do when she dropped the F-bomb on the "SNL" season premiere two weeks ago.

"When I drop something, I say 's-,'" Wiig says in the upcoming Entertainment Weekly. "If I do something wrong, I say, 'f-.' I'm so nervous I'm going to say a line and go, 'Oh, s-. I mean, 'f-!'" And even though the funnygirl has a great gig at "SNL," she insists it's still just a job. "I think people expect me to talk in voices when I order dinner," she says. "I'm not like that. Comedy is just one thing I do, and I can't wait to branch out and do other things."

Wiig never liked speaking in public, but after an acting class in college she dropped out of school and tried to make it in Los Angeles. "I just packed my car and drove there and didn't tell my parents," says Wiig. "But they were okay with it later."

Upon arriving in L.A., Wiig felt insecure about her lack of acting experience and instead held a series of odd jobs to make ends meet, including stints at Anthropologie and Hollywood Hot Dog. "My first time back to Rochester [her hometown], a friend called and said that she heard that I moved to L.A. because a psychic told me to, and that I have my own hot dog stand on the street. I didn't really know how to defend myself. I was like, ˜Yeah. That's what happened. Absolutely."

She has other films coming up and is co-writing a comedy script for Judd Apatow.

So is Wiig worried about burnout? "I take pretty good care of myself. I know when to say, ˜I gotta go home and go to bed. So far I haven't passed out," she says. But I have been dizzy."

From:
http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/10/08/2009-10-08_saturday_night_live_star_.html#ixzz0TU2OkzS5


Part of Kristen's stamina is that most of her movies have been a week of work or less. Even Whip It was filmed in a few short weeks. So she'll probably have to slow down as she gets more starring roles.

Enjoy!

Kristen Wiig - New Whip It Interview - trained to skate for roller derby

She trained on skates for her part in the roller derby film 'Whip It.' The sport isn't 'just the big tough girls with the tattoos,' she says.



Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, "Whip It," is set in the freestyling world of women's roller derby...

Bliss' [Ellen Page's] mentor is Maggie Mayhem, played with gentle humor by "Saturday Night Live's" Kristen Wiig... Under Maggie's guidance, Bliss auditions for the Hurl Scouts derby team and finds her calling on the track. Like a cool aunt, Maggie also offers sound advice and a couch to crash on.

Wiig had worked with Page and Barrymore when each had hosted "SNL," so bonding with their characters was easy. But she says the real key to her derby role was found on the track.

"I knew how to roller skate in a rink 20 years ago, but this is definitely different because the track is slanted and elevated, and you're not just skating with your friends listening to Eddie Rabbit," Wiig says. "You're hitting each other and learning how to fall." So she showed up for a couple of weeks of training in Michigan, not knowing how to even stand up on the slanted track, let alone move. Playing the team's captain, Wiig was especially intent on looking at home on wheels. "Knowing that you had to shoot a movie in two weeks is motivation and pressure combined."

Training included learning how to pretend to take a hit and even how to stop without brakes. It also included lessons from members of real derby team, including the L.A. Derby Dolls... "I think it was important for Drew to kind of let everyone know that so many different types of women do derby," Wiig says. "Not just the big tough girls with the tattoos and stuff -- there's a lot of that -- but we met women there who are teachers and nurses and mothers and wives."

The derby girls didn't just play together; they interacted like a family... "They sleep on each other's couches, they party together, they go on trips together, and they help each other move," Wiig says of the skating subculture...

And the friendships lasted well after the filming ended. "I'm crazy about Kristen," Page says. "First of all, she is probably the funniest person I've ever met. And working with her was so enjoyable, I just want to be in everything she's in. I want to sneak in the background."

It's not just derby girls who fall for Wiig. Jason Bateman, her costar in Mike Judge's "Extract," is similarly enchanted. "I'm a gigantic fan of what Kristen does and what she doesn't do, frankly. She's very comfortable not leaning into things; she trusts that you don't need to speak any louder or make any funny faces to get people's attention. She's very subtle, and I love that." The two just wrapped Greg Mottola's film "Paul," due out next year. Calling her a genuinely nice person, Bateman adds, "It's been a great half-year with her, all in."

... [Kristen:] "If you're on a movie set and you're an actor, you're lucky, because there's a lot of people out there that would love to be doing what you're doing, and we've all worked hard to get there." So though it's certainly easy to complain about the long hours or the wait, "I've always said my worst day on a set is better than my best day when I was wanting to be on a set."

Excerpts from:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-performance1-2009oct01,0,5655841.story

I love how humble Kristen is and how much her coworkers like her!

Enjoy!